


Reference Points

by Sholio



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 22:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: All Dekker needs is the here and now. He has them for the rest of it.





	Reference Points

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the "Isolation" prompt for Whumptober; the request was for Alliance-Union or Chanur, any characters.

"It was only four hours. Four hours, all right? That's half a shift. Less than half of a long shift. Not that long."

Dekker lay awake in the dark bedroom of their cramped suite on _Norway,_ listening to the argument in the common room. They thought he was asleep, but even drugs couldn't damp him down enough to sleep right now. The voices were something to hold onto, something to remind him he was here and not there.

"Four hours is a long damn time, cher." This from Sal, a soft familiar voice from that lighted space beyond the wall. "When you been through what he's been through."

"Quiet," Meg said sharply. "You'll wake him up. Man needs his rest."

"I'm just _saying."_ Ben sounded deeply annoyed. There was a slap of cards being flung to the plastic surface of the table in their quarters. "They got him out, _we_ got him out, fast as humanly possible when you have a mechanical malfunction like that."

Dek turned his head into the pillow and gripped it in both hands. The voices were real. He kept telling himself that.

(There had been voices in the dark, too. Not always theirs. He hadn't known it had been only four hours. Felt longer, was all. Felt a lot longer. Simulator accident, the report would say.)

(He remembered screaming. Remembered saying Cory's name. Wished he remembered less than he did, honestly.)

"And I was working my ass off same as the rest of you, so stop saying we didn't do enough." There was a sharp edge to Ben's voice.

"Nobody's saying that, _petit cher._" Sal now. Dek smiled a little, against the pillow; pictured her leaning over to touch Ben's arm. "They're saying, have a little empathy."

"Empathy? What I say is, he can hold it together for once, when it's over and done."

"Held it together fine." Meg, her voice very tight.

Dekker sighed, rolled over and sat up, swinging his legs off the bunk. That tone in Meg's voice meant there was going to be fighting soon. Might come to blows, and that was a rare thing with Meg, at least when she wasn't fighting Company goons. But that was the way her voice sounded now.

_He_ knew what Ben meant. Ben was pretty easy to figure, most days. Just a straight line. It was Meg and Sal that were corkscrews.

Dekker grabbed coveralls. It was chilly in the room when they were coasting, just keeping inertia and doing a slow cruise 'til the next jump point. Dressed in the dark room, hopping on one foot and catching himself on the wall and not, _not_ thinking about the struggle to get himself in and out of pressure suits in zero gee. He was here in _Norway_ in near-one gee and that was how you could tell. Here and not there and _definitely_ not in that other place.

Out in the common room, Sal -- bless her -- had managed to get a debate going about fish vs. vat protein. Dekker stepped out into a sudden hush, the three of them looking up from their cards.

"Need something to eat," he said. Not sure why he said it; the argument (which had somehow moved on to fish having eyeballs) was going to put him off protein for good, of whatever kind, in his present state. Instead he got a cup of water from the dispenser in the head.

"You want something?" Meg asked, on her feet. "Mess is serving cold food now, sandwiches and things. Might have something they could heat up."

"Got chips here," Ben said.

"Oh, shut up." Meg was definitely up to the eyeballs (fish or otherwise) with Ben right now.

"Chips are good," Dekker said, not trying to take sides, just wanting them to stop fighting and wanting something in his stomach he didn't have to walk far to get.

Meg got hold of him, sat him down and put her arm around him. He took the package of chips (passed from Ben by way of Sal) and opened it, but didn't really have much urge to eat it once he did.

"I'll take one of those," Sal said, and did.

"I don't know about either one of you," Meg said.

"_I_ don't know what the big deal is," Ben said, laying down his cards. He glanced up at Dekker. "We got you out. Got you, right? What's the big deal, then? We're always going to do that. It's not effin' complicated."

"Sal, shut him up. I swear to the depths of Pell that I will bounce this bag of chips straight off his head," Meg said. "Maybe with a brick in it."

"'s'all right," Dek said wearily, leaning on her shoulder. Straight line, always. It was a course he could follow in the dark; that was what Ben had always been, even back when it was a straight line from here to the airlock. "I get what he means."

"Glad someone does," Sal said. "You gonna eat these?"

He gave up the bag of chips to her, and closed his eyes, because voices in the dark was what they were anyway. Voices in the dark, telling him where he was, telling him what was coming and what his heading needed to be. All he needed to think about was _now;_ they gave him all other reference points, temporal and otherwise.

"Comes out here just to fall asleep," Ben said. "Honestly."

"Sal," Meg said, and there was a yelp from Ben, and then silence. _"Thank_ you."


End file.
